New USPTO patent regulations may foster more litigation

One of the goals of the America Invents Act (AIA) was to cut down on the number of patent litigation cases being filed. But recently released regulations by the USPTO may do just the opposite.

AIA’s new “supplemental examination“ procedure was designed to cut down on litigation against pharmaceutical and technology companies by allowing patent owners to go back to the USPTO after a patent is issued “and voluntarily submit additional information to be considered as to whether it impacts patentability,” notes www.forbes.com.

But doing so would require “a patent owner to mount an assault in detail on the validity of his own patent,” Forbes noted, and the very act “of making these kinds of statements could . . .become a source of future litigation as accused infringers look for any misstatements.

IPBlog notes that the proposed regulations are now open to public comment and encourages all pharmaceutical and technology CIPOs to comment to prevent costly and time-intensive litigation from skyrocketing.